The present invention relates to magnetic resonance imaging or xe2x80x9cMRIxe2x80x9d and particularly to a personal computer or xe2x80x9cPCxe2x80x9d based control system and method for an MRI scanner.
Presently, different MRI scanner control systems require control systems which are different from each other. Various MRI providers usually use custom hardware for control of their particular scanner. For instance, different device drivers and related I/O hardware cards are used to interact with, manage and control certain external sub-systems such as the magnet, the radio frequency or xe2x80x9cRFxe2x80x9d transceiver and the patient handling sub-system.
By way of example only, certain disadvantages are inherent in the present systems available in the MRI industry. For instance, with proprietary hardware based control systems, pulse programmers have to adjust pulse sequence in accordance with the observed affects from the specifics of the hardware of the I/O sub-system. Thus, each pulse sequence has to be adjusted to account for xe2x80x9cripplingxe2x80x9d effects from the real time system due to the interaction between the hardware and the software. As another example, pulse sequences for imaging have to be specified mathematically and tested on scanner equipment for adjustment to system characteristics. In addition, current MRI scanner control systems are not capable of being used in different systems such as where there may be a different MRI magnet. As Such, for each different MRI magnet, a proprietary and unique MRI scanner control system is required. Finally, by way of example, the resulting image slice from an MRI scan cannot, in real time, be sharpened, smoothed and contrasted in order to increase the resolution of tile selected image.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system and method for controlling an MRI scanner which is capable of being used with different types of MRI scanners and related equipment. It also is desirable to have a personal computer based software control system and method for controlling the MRI scanner systems. Additionally, it is desirable to have an MRI scanner control system wherein an operator can interactively and in real time sharpen, smooth and contrast to adjust the selected image using a pointing device such as an electronic mouse and where the adjusted image can be compared to an unmodified image for further control of same.
The present invention addresses these needs. The present invention allows MRI scanner manufacturers to reduce the cost of their systems by exploiting the economics of scale implicit in the PC market. This invention also exploits technological advances by standardizing on an industry standard software execution environment while providing the necessary interface required for MRI scanner control. The present invention also overcomes hardware sensitivity by providing a virtual device to the scanner control application. This virtual device accepts a set of command blocks which specify the scan control parameters. The virtual device then translates these generic parameters to the specifics of the current system. A major problem which this general system overcomes is the real time processing requirements implicit in the scanning process.
In general, the present invention comprises a PC-based software control system and method for controlling various types of MRI scanners. The system controls and manages a typical MRI scanner. The PC is interfaced with the scanner""s external subsystems such as the magnet, RF generation and patient handling or database system. The subsystems are interfaced through a set of I/O cards. The particulars of these I/O cards are handled through a device driver which presents a consistent interface to the scanner control software. This interface, in effect, presents a virtual scanner I/O subsystem to the scanner control system. This virtual device accepts commands and returns data through an industry standard Application Program Interface (API). The command block contains the waveform shape information as well as timing data for the gradient and RF waves. Additionally, the data acquisition parameters are also specified in the command block.
One aspect of the present invention provides a magnetic resonance imaging or xe2x80x9cMRIxe2x80x9d scanner system comprising a personal computer having an accessible memory storage medium; an MRI magnet which interfaces with the personal computer; means for controlling and managing input and output information to and from the MRI magnet; a radio frequency or xe2x80x9cRFxe2x80x9d transceiver for use with the MRI magnet, the RF transceiver being interfaced with the personal computer; an image display unit electronically interfaced with the personal computer for displaying scan data received from the RF transceiver; and a patient database interfaced with the personal computer for retrieving and recording patient data.
Another aspect of the present invention provides an image display system for use with a magnetic resonance image or xe2x80x9cMRIxe2x80x9d scanner system comprising an image display unit for displaying scanned images from an MRI scan and means for providing interactive, real time simultaneous image sharpening, smoothing and contrast modification of a selected image slice to be displayed on the image display.
Yet another aspect of the present invention provides a multitask, parallel processing magnetic resonance imaging or xe2x80x9cMRIxe2x80x9d scanner system comprising an image display subsystem for viewing tomographic images and means for interfacing said image display subsystem with a variety of display formats.